"From Dusk Till Dawn" won’t be everyone’s cup of bullets and blood, but
it is a near-perfect specimen of its rare type, an amalgamation of
"Reservoir Dogs," "Desperado" and the "Evil Dead" films that switches
genres on a dime. It is quick of wit and quicker of pace, bracingly
profane, often hilarious and gross at the same time, gaudily violent,
in-your-face and generally a hell of a lot of fun for those who enjoy
this sort of thing. Those who don’t enjoy this sort of thing should
probably avoid the artwork on the box, let alone the film itself.

The "From Dusk Till Dawn" Collector’s Edition actually consists of two
different full-length movies, one on each of the two-disc set. Viewers
should not freak out when Disc 1 – where one might normally expect to
find the main feature – contains the aptly-titled "Full-Tilt Boogie,"
Sara Kelly’s exuberant and highly informative documentary on the making
of "From Dusk Till Dawn." Besides all of the interviews, behind the
scenes footage and general clowning around, "Boogie" chronicles the
ongoing battle between the "Dawn" production company and the IATSE film
technicians’ union. Kelly’s attempts to get comments from a union rep
are a little comedy/drama in their own right.

The main attraction is on Disc 2, in all its loud, bloody glory. The
Gecko brothers, Seth (George Clooney) and Richie (Quentin Tarantino)
are a pair of on-the-lam bank robbers who have already racked up a
double-digit death toll in their quest to elude the Texas Rangers,
police and FBI. The Geckos are headed for the Mexican town of El Rey, a
kind of sanctuary for wanted criminals. Knowing they’ll have trouble
crossing the border, the Geckos kidnap the Fuller family --
recently-widowed ex-pastor Jacob (Harvey Keitel), daughter Kate
(Juliette Lewis) and son Scott (Ernest Liu) – and roll into Mexico in
an RV. The Geckos plan to wait out the night with their captives in a
roadhouse strip joint. If all goes well, Seth plans to release his
hostages unharmed in the morning. Things in fact seem to be proceeding
amiably (all things considered), but there’s something about the bar’s
staff that the customers don’t know. Exactly one hour into the running
time (check the time reading on your player), all hell breaks loose –
and pretty much doesn’t let up until the last scene.

Director and Robert Rodriguez and screenwriter Quentin Tarantino,
working from a story by Robert Kurtzman (who, along with Greg Nicotero
and Howard Berger, did the film’s massive special effects), have styles
the complement each other, bristling with irreverent energy and dark
humor. They get away with playing with audience sympathies in a manner
that most films either fail at hideously or don’t dare in the first
place. There’s not a figure in the film who doesn’t at least entertain
us, and a few of them manage to storm moral barriers that are normally
insurmountable.

Keitel and Clooney are particularly good, separately and together. On
the audio commentary track, Rodriguez and Tarantino talk about the
difficulty of finding a younger actor who could credibly appear to
dominate a character played by Keitel; it’s greatly to Clooney’s credit
that he brings it off.

The 5.1 Surround on "Dusk" is excellent, with the rears fully alive
from the outset. In Chapter 1, we have highway traffic rumbling
alongside us, from mains to rears, setting us in the center of a liquor
store. The rears also house the store clerk’s twangy radio, while the
center keeps the dialogue track nice and solid. When gunfire and
explosions break out – still in Chapter 1 – we get roars of individual
fires in each of the speakers. Chapter 2 gives us a punchy song in the
mains, with realistic-sounding bird chirps in the rears. Chapter 3
gives us still more commendably specific directional sound, as a door
opens in the left main, followed by a car driving off through the
rears, receding down the road at lifelike speed. In Chapter 4, drums on
the soundtrack make themselves felt through the subwoofer, while the
rears continue to host the subtle motion of vehicles on the highway
beyond. A rumble that makes its way through all of the speakers is used
effectively throughout, indicating the unsettled mental condition of
Tarantino’s character. Chapter 11 is both menacing and amusing in the
way it brings up an instrumental version of "Tequila" in the mains.
Chapter 13 brings us to the strip joint entrance. The place looks as
much like the mouth of Hell as it possibly can, with the audio to
match. Motorcycles roar left to right behind us, while the
fire-belching torches at the door blast flame with an intensity that
will shake your floor. Chapter 16 marks the abrupt start of the all-out
insanity, with music, gunshots, fire, squashy flesh-tearing sounds and
screams. A few special sound effects are relegated to the rears for
truly startling impact, and Chapter 23 has an almighty explosion. Don’t
turn your eyes from the screen before the final shot, which puts a
great joke into the last frame.

On my reference system, the supplemental material played entirely in
the mains. The Rodriguez/Tarantino commentary is happy and lively, with
the actual soundtrack playing underneath in the mains at barely audible
levels. The outtakes are reasonably funny, especially the first one,
which shows Clooney struggling through take after take with a
tongue-twisting line. The making-of featurette is not nearly as
enlightening or extensive as "Full-Tilt Boogie," but it’s still
engaging.

The DVD also contains two music videos. Tito and Tarantula’s "After
Dark" is a sultry number that sounds swell even confined to the mains
(for a fuller version, check out its use in the film in Chapter 14),
but the video is little more than a film clip, interspersed sparingly
with bits of other scenes. ZZ Top’s "She’s Just Killin’ Me" is more
like it. Rodriguez, Clooney and Salma Hayek (reprising her role from
the film) shot a lot of new footage that has its own narrative but
still echoes the film’s themes, intercut with footage of the ZZ
gentlemen doing their thing on stage.

If you are an action/horror fan and want to see something that simply
won’t quit moving and acoustically lands you in the center of the
melee, "From Dusk Till Dawn" is about as close as you can get to
must-see DVD.